Arcades Cornices

[Mark Knowles]

There is a drawing of a building on the causeway from the top-right rosette to the top centre rosette. Now to me that looks very much like the kind of pretty flat roofed campanile(church bell tower) that we find prevalent in South Eastern France and Northern Italy.

To me there is a feature of this drawing that I particularly associate with campanile. This is arcaded cornices. Now arcades cornices are a series of semicircular architectural features that we see particularly at the tops of many campanile. It is noteworthy that the author of the Voynich made a deliberate decision to draw these curly semicircular features at the top of the building in question, this is not the natural or normal thing to do, it requires a deliberate decision to represent the building in that way.

To me, like the swallow tail battlements, these arcades cornices again tie the Voynich to Northern Italy or possibly South Eastern France.

Now I don't know the history or origin of the use of arcades cornices and whether they have a specific meaning in the way that swallow-tailed battlements do. I don't know how their usage dispersed geographically over time. However I do know that they were definitely in use in the early 15th century in Lombardy. If anyone else has any knowledge of arcades cornices or where to find more information of this kind that would be interesting.